Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Quotes

Yo siempre he amado el desierto. Uno puede sentarse sobre una duna de arena. No ve nada. No escucha nada. Y, sin embargo, siempre hay algo que brilla en el silencio.

Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young.

Etre homme, c'est précisément être responsable. C'est connaître la honte en face d'une misère qui ne semblait pas dépendre de soi. C'est être fier d'une victoire que les camarades ont remportée. C'est sentir, en posant sa pierre, que l'on contribue à batir le monde.
On veut confondre de tels hommes avec les toréadors ou les joueurs. On vante leur mépris de la mort. Mais je me moque bien du mépris de la mort. S'il ne tire pas ses racines d'une responsabilité accceptée, il n'est que signe de pauvreté ou d'excès de jeunesse.
(Terre des Hommes, ch. II)

Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essentail matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.

If you were to say to the grown-ups: “I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof,” they would not be able to get an idea of that house at all. You have have to say to them: “I saw a house that cost $20,000.” Then they would exclaim: “Oh, what a pretty house that is!

Nós não pedimos para ser eternos, mas apenas para não ver os atos e as coisas perderem subitamente o seu sentido. O vazio que nos rodeia faz-se então sentir...

Certo che ti farò del male. Certo che me ne farai. Certo che ce ne faremo. Ma questa è la condizione stessa dell’esistenza. Farsi primavera, significa accettare il rischio dell’inverno. Farsi presenza, significa accettare il rischio dell’assenza.

And now of a sudden my illusion vanished. What was my body to me? A kind of flunkey in my service. Let my anger wax hot, my love grow exalted, my hatred collect in me, and the boasted solidarity between me and my body was gone.

Your son is in a burning house. Nobody can hold you back. You may burn up, but what do you think of that? You are ready to bequeath the rags of your body to any man who will take them. You discover that what you set so much store by is trash. You would sell your hand, if need be, to give a hand to a friend. It is in your act that you exist, not in your body. Your act is yourself, and there is no other you. Your body belongs to you: it is not you. Are you about to strike an enemy? No threat of bodily harm can hold you back. You? It is the death of your enemy that is you. You? It is the rescue of your child that is you. In that moment you exchange yourself against something else; and you have no feeling tat you lost by the exchange. Your members? Tools. A tool snaps in your hand: how important is that tool? You exchange yourself against the death of your enemy, the rescue of your child, the recovery of your patient, the perfection of your theorem...Your true significance becomes dazzlingly evident. Your true name is duty, hatred, love, child, theorem. There is no other you than this.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

There is a tendency to class such men with toreadors and gamblers. People extol their contempt for death. But I would not give a fig for anybody’s contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.

You know — one loves the sunset, when one is so sad.

Not a single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. It would be a bit too easy if we could go about borrowing ready-made souls.

Ce n'était qu'un renard semblable à cent mille autres. Mais j'en ai fait mon ami, et il est maintenant unique au monde.

When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it : it is yours. So with me : I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever thought of owning them.

Where I live, everything is very small.

if someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows, in all the millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars.